There was a tract of land under cultivation some four miles southwest of the fort, situated on the west bank of the South Branch of the Chicago River, about where at the present time the old Illinois and Michigan Canal opens into that stream. This tract was owned by a man named Charles Lee, and the farm was known as "Lee's place." On this tract stood a log cabin in which a number of men employed by Lee lived and carried on the work of the farm. Lee himself lived with his family in a house near the fort on the bank of the river opposite where it discharged into the lake; which was near the present intersection of Madison Street and Michigan Avenue. It will be remembered that in those days a long sand-bar prevented the river from finding an outlet directly in line with its course, and the current was forced to creep along close to the shore for some distance toward the south. Lee's place was also known as "Hardscrabble," a name which continued to be applied to that neighborhood for many decades thereafter. "The name of 'Hardscrabble,'" it is said in a recent history of Chicago, "has always been a favorite one among pioneers to describe a place in which conditions of existence were hard and difficult. A place of that name was situated near Lewiston, New York, on the Niagara River, about the same period, and is mentioned in military despatches during the ensuing War of 1812; and in the State of Illinois the town of Streator was thus colloquially known during its earlier history." Before the Civil War, General Grant lived on a farm near St. Louis, where he built a log cabin with his own hands and called it "Hardscrabble." The same name was given to a work of fiction by Major John Richardson, with the subtitle "A Tale of Indian Warfare." This work takes the events which occurred at Lee's place and bases upon them a romance the details of which the author supplied largely from his imagination. Many other examples of the use of this name might be given. [Illustration: HARDSCRABBLE. _There was a farmhouse standing on the west bank of the South Branch of the Chicago river some four miles from the mouth of the river, built some time after Fort Dearborn had been established This house and the farm adjoining it was owned by a man named Charles Lee, who, however, did not live on the premises, but occupied a house near the fort. The house and farm were known as Lee's Place, or Hardscrabble._ _It was here that two men in the employ of Lee were killed by Indians in the April preceding the evacuation and destruction of Fort Dearborn and the massacre of the troops._]